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Ethereum Incubator Receives $450 Million Investment and Now Worth $7 Billion


ConsenSys, a software incubator for Ethereum, announced this Tuesday (15) that it has raised US$ 450 million through the “series D” investment round (raising aimed at companies that want to achieve new goals) led by ParaFi Capital and other big names, including Microsoft and Softbank.

The new round values ​​ConsenSys above $7 billion — double the valuation it received after a $200 million round just four months ago.

ConsenSys was launched in 2014 as a home for startups that wanted to harness the potential of the then-new blockchain called Ethereum. The company then gained a reputation for its innovation, but also criticism for its messy work culture.

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Over the past two years, the company appears to have made progress thanks to the emergence of two major products: the Web 3 MetaMask wallet and the Infura crypto infrastructure platform.

ConsenSys currently has two divisions: ConsenSys Software Inc (or CSI) and ConsenSys Mesh, which finances and incubates crypto startups.

According to CEO and founder Joe Lubin, ConsenSys will use the funding to further leverage MetaMask and Infura, as well as other Ethereum-compatible software tools.

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“It’s about growing the company organically and bringing the best and brightest into our ecosystem,” Lubin told decrypt in an interview about the new financing.

“There are a lot of people in the world of Web 3 technologies and traditional finance who are dying to get in [nesse setor].”

Metamask growth

MetaMask has grown tremendously in the last year — having reached 30 million monthly active users — as has Infura. But both are completely different products.

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MetaMask is a wallet used by customers to browse the Web 3 while Infura is a developer toolset for developing and maintaining crypto applications.

It creates a potential strategic challenge for a company to serve both customers and companies at once, but Lubin said he views MetaMask and Infura as complementary, as the portfolio relies heavily on Infura to function and will continue to rely on it as it grows.

Lubin added that MetaMask will increase its efforts to serve institutional clients and provide more tools to connect to credit cards and other elements of the traditional finance industry.

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Part of this involves launching a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and issuing a MetaMask token to provide new wallet features, though ConsenSys has not released further details on when that might happen.

Meanwhile, ConsenSys (along with much of the industry) will be watching closely to see when the Ethereum network will execute its long-awaited “merge” into the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism, which consists of updating the blockchain so that no longer use energy-intensive Proof of Work (PoW) mining.

According to Lubin, who is also one of the co-founders of Ethereum, early signs suggest that the transition to PoS will go smoothly and could happen at the end of this month or in early April. More than 10 million ethers (ETH) are already staking on Ethereum 2.0.

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At ConsenSys, Lubin says he remains committed to the ethos of decentralization that animates Ethereum. His main priorities include the “progressive decentralization” of MetaMask and the expansion of Infura to serve “20 or 30” different blockchain protocols.

On a personal level, Lubin says he has learned to adapt as ConsenSys evolves from a chaotic extension of Ethereum’s early days into a large company whose supporters include the likes of JP Morgan and Microsoft.

When asked if he likes to model his leadership style after great CEOs like Elon Musk or Tim Cook, Lubin replies, “Neither. My ideal CEO model is a chameleon that can nimbly adapt to the environment and move quickly.”

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Companies that also invested in the new ConsenSys funding include Temasek, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, C Ventures, Third Point, Marshall Wace, TRUE Capital Management and the United Talent Agency venture capital fund, which had also invested in the “series Ç”.

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